Why Frank Ocean Made His Private Instagram Public

Last November, February cover star Frank Ocean made waves with the smallest of gestures: He made his private Instagram public. "Welcome," read the caption on the wide-angle mirror selfie, a photo of a shirtless Ocean holding his phone in front of his face and stretching an arm out in a broad wave. As far as gestures go, it was a big one for the famously reclusive artist—and in this month's cover story, he explains why he let us all in the door.

"I feel like there was dissonance between how I was seen by the audience and where I was actually," Ocean says. "I feel like between the numbers of zero to ten, in between every number there's infinity, you know? I would describe a person as the space between the symbols, beyond the language. That dissonance—the word being a big container for how I was feeling...the way I was seen was not even close to correct. It's still not correct, either."

According to Ocean, the challenge of being an artist who values privacy and doesn't often speak publicly is a lack of agency in how your story gets told. Welcoming the world to his Instagram, he says, is a small way of taking back his story.

"With some pop stars, the idea of them is maybe more balanced or fully formed: a half-dozen magazine covers, x amount of interviews, a daily influx of media," Ocean says. "When you're completely minimal with media, there's a lot of pressure on whatever one thing you're doing, the stakes are higher. Social media helps that, 'cause you're fully in control and can message that how you want."

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